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The first time it happened, it was completely by chance.Nagumo was in the middle of a shift at his part time job, the one he didn’t need but used to keep himself feeling human, when Sakamoto walked in with a jingling of the little bell above the door. When Nagumo looked up from the crossword puzzle he was filling in behind the register to offer his customary greeting, the obligatory words froze in his throat. With the little corner convenience store so tiny and crowded, there was nowhere to duck out of view. Since he was the only one on shift, there was also no coworker he could tag out with.Luckily, Sakamoto had never been great at eye contact, and he didn’t even glance Nagumo’s way before moving toward a few shelves in the back and starting to look over items. Unluckily, he was also an idiot. When he couldn’t seem to find what he was looking for, he just dithered a little, then almost seemed to want to leave without asking about it.Nagumo chewed his lip for a moment before waving him over with his best customer service smile. “How can I help you?” it said without any actual words needing to be spoken.“Do you carry mint gum?”Thankfully Nagumo was a great actor because otherwise his disguise persona would’ve crumpled on the spot out of sheer exasperation. What kind of person didn’t know mints were usually stocked near the register? Sakamoto looked so sheepish to be asking about it too. Like requesting help wasn’t something ‘cool’ kids did. Well, maybe cool kids didn’t have to ask since they had basic societal knowledge and a self-awareness level above pre-school.Motioning at the little trays of mints and gums on the counter (pretty much directly in front of Sakamoto), Nagumo smiled cheerily and pointed at a couple of the spearmint flavoured offerings in a friendly recommendation. Once his quarry had been highlighted, Sakamoto efficiently plucked out three packs of gum, placed them on the counter, and took out his wallet.His classmate didn’t even chew gum, and with the way he was going about a simple shopping trip as if it were a mission, Nagumo had no doubt he’d lost some bet with Akao again and had been tasked with a fetch quest as punishment.Ringing him up, Nagumo bit back a laugh and breathed a little easier. If even up so close, Sakamoto hadn’t recognized him, there was no risk of it at all. Really, Sakamoto had barely even looked up the entire interaction, and Nagumo’s disguises were perfect. At this job, he slipped into the skin of a young lady with light brown hair and a friendly, docile temperament. He’d pinned his locks up into a loose bun at the base of his neck, and with a dusting of rosy blush and some clear contacts with subtle sparkles in them to add some life into his eyes, he looked like an entirely different person. Especially since he hadn’t spoken, there was no way Sakamoto could see past his disguise.The rest of the quiet interaction went smoothly, so it was only at the very end when Sakamoto put his wallet away and looked up that anything registered as dangerous. Nagumo had been prepared the entire time for some sort of inquisitive look or worst-case scenario, recognition, but what appeared on Sakamoto’s face ended up being much more deadly—it was gratitude. A quiet warmth washed briefly over those typically neutral features as their eyes met, and Sakamoto gave him a slight nod.That alone was enough to send Nagumo’s stomach dropping, but then Sakamoto’s hand inadvertently brushed against the side of his as he took the plastic bag containing his purchase before leaving. Frozen in surprise, Nagumo could only watch him walk away. The rush which went through his entire body from that brief scrape of skin contact was exhilarating.Sakamoto never looked at him that way. Really, their eyes didn’t meet at all usually. When the two of them spent time together without Akao, they barely even talked either unless Nagumo provoked some words or reactions out of him. He seemed perfectly content to just do his own thing as Nagumo chattered, occasionally offering a small grunt when a topic amused him.Something strange moved in Nagumo’s chest. The rest of his shift flew past in a haze. The second time, it was also unintentional.Walking across the campus quad on his way back to his dorm from a class where he’d been acting as teacher’s aide by demonstrating how to efficiently assume a false role, a frisbee clipped his ankle with a surprising amount of force, and caught off guard, Nagumo lost his balance and fell into the grass.Rubbing the bruised spot on his leg, he scowled and turned to the figure who’d run over to retrieve the flying disk. “Watch where you’re throwing that thing—”It was Sakamoto who was standing there uncertainly, the plastic frisbee held in his fingers. After a beat of no further scolding words, he reached out and offered a hand to pull what probably looked to him like a middle-aged teacher up.The situation had suddenly transformed into the perfect opportunity for a little teasing, but Sakamoto looked vaguely apologetic as he helped Nagumo off the grass, and it didn’t seem like he’d recognized his classmate’s voice.Nagumo pushed his luck a little further by asking for directions to the library, making up a story about adjunct professors having a conference lunch there later that afternoon.Sakamoto’s eyes flicked to the male dorm building in front of them, then across the grass of the quad in the direction the frisbee had flown from. Just as Nagumo was about to say he could find it himself if need be, pairing the words with a reassuring hand wave, Sakamoto tapped on his shoulder then pointed in the correct direction. “That way.”Once he reached the building (that of course he’d already known the location of), Nagumo sat in a quiet corner near some bookshelves and replayed the interaction in his head again and again. The two firm taps of Sakamoto’s pointer finger echoed on his shoulder long after the latex on his face started peeling off and Nagumo had to actually head back to his room to take it off.Again, Sakamoto hadn’t recognized him. Had looked at him without a scowl.An addictive little rush of energy buzzed along Nagumo’s spine.Soon he was hooked on the feeling. There was only one store on JCC campus that sold tobacco products, a small military surplus shop. Nagumo interviewed there for his next job. It was a smart tactical decision.Every so often on his shifts, he caught the faint sounds of bickering and was able to compose his face and adjust his faux-prescription glasses before his friends even came within eyeshot. When they did, he got to greet Akao and Sakamoto who burst into the place with his persona’s shy smile and sell Akao more packs than was probably healthy.Really, she shouldn’t have been smoking at all, but she never commented on his poison of choice, never voiced her doubtless inquiries about his tattoos, so he kept his mouth shut about her little underage compulsion as well.Most of the time, he handed the purchases to Akao, but sometimes when he felt greedy, Nagumo would slide the boxes Sakamoto’s way and steal a little touch as Sakamoto’s warm fingers brushed his to pick up the smokes. Even when he didn’t court danger, on most visits, Sakamoto would look back over his shoulder as they were leaving and give him a little nod of thanks.The two of them got to buy some cigarettes, and Nagumo got his fix. It was a win-win situation.Throughout the entire three semesters he worked there, Akao and Sakamoto spoke with him casually only a few times beyond the basic customer service questions and never recognized it was him. At least, Nagumo didn’t think so.The only time he briefly questioned his assurance of that was when Akao asked him one night if the small shop carried a specific replacement part she wanted for a gun she was rebuilding. Nagumo had started running through the store’s inventory list in his mind when she pushed another finger inside him and then it was hard to think at all. Akao always did that, asked questions she only halfway expected answers to, then got distracted and moved onto something else.It was better that he was too dazed and breathless to answer though, because it wasn’t like she expected an actual response to her inquiry. Why would he know if the place carried spare trigger guard replacement pieces? It wasn’t like she’d ever seen Nagumo in that building before.Things kept going on like that for a while: Nagumo would practice his disguises and acting skills by taking on various roles and little jobs around campus, and sometimes he’d be rewarded with a little snippet of Sakamoto’s attention as their paths coincidentally crossed.At the time it all seemed like such a fun game. Who could Nagumo pretend to be next? What situation could he concoct as an excuse to strike up a short conversation? Was there a difference in the way Sakamoto treated older and younger peers? Did his classmate have a type?The setups, the acting, the small treasures he stole in the form of kind glances, brushes of the shoulder, and rare words—they never got any less exciting. Nagumo cherished each and every second he weaseled away of Sakamoto’s time while in disguise.It was only when those three halcyon years came to an abrupt end that he realized he should’ve been worshipping them instead. Should have been meticulously cataloguing every minute detail. Should have been filling journals, logs, binders, with his memories to preserve them more clearly. Nagumo missed Akao. But Sakamoto missed her more, so really he had no right to mope like his body wanted to. During the long months she was gone, he got up out of bed and attended his duties like usual every day. Without her bad influence, he and Sakamoto were seldom tempted to slack off and shirk their work beyond a surface level scattering of grumbling complaints.It was a little strange to wake up and put on a suit and walk into an office building (stranger to see his typically bad-boy-looking friend in any sort of business attire), but the two of them kept going all the same. Kept growing and improving their lethal toolkits.Sakamoto didn’t act outwardly too different, but Nagumo saw the way he was rationing those cigarettes. Previously, Sakamoto wouldn’t even smoke unless Akao offered him one, but now occasionally Nagumo caught the faint scent of tobacco on him in the morning and would know the previous night had been a bad one. It was strange without the third member of their trio, yet, life went on.They’d combed that section of highway so many times Nagumo had memorized the pattern of cracks in the cement, had played I-spy with Sakamoto to name little shapes that potholes resembled—all of it to no avail. There was simply no trace of Akao anywhere. They couldn’t find the path she’d taken no matter how many tracking skills they used. It was like she’d vanished into thin air the second she’d left their line of sight. Eventually there was nothing they could do but wait for the next lead to crop up.In the meantime, every so often, Nagumo subtlely slid a few more cigarettes into the crumpled box Sakamoto kept in the pocket of his jacket and sighed impatiently for Akao to come back. She’d owe Nagumo at least a month’s supply of strawberry-flavoured snacks since the brand she liked wasn’t altogether that cheap.It was only after the Uzuki mission that Sakamoto started buying his own packs and smoking in earnest. Nagumo didn’t let himself indulge in his little hobby after that. He didn’t deserve it.Instead, he annoyed Sakamoto occasionally on Order jobs, let himself get swatted around. Honestly, even Sakamoto’s irritation and brief glances his way solely to ascertain his location during missions were more than Nagumo deserved. But without Akao, he wasn’t sure if he could live in the absence of the little whispers of warmth Sakamoto gave him in the form of a punch to the face, a shove to the side. Nagumo’s body was so cold. And he needed the tiny sparks to keep going.So he kept irritating Sakamoto, provoking him, getting on his nerves. And Nagumo prayed they could continue on like that until he died. He couldn’t even complain when the world took Sakamoto away from him because it was true he’d been greedy in clinging on. Because Sakamoto looked so much happier with Aoi that it was painful.It was painful. To know the entire time, Sakamoto’s smile had looked so beautiful.And Nagumo had never managed to draw one out of him.So Nagumo let him go. Didn’t kill him and crawl inside his corpse for warmth like he wanted to.His body froze, forming a layer of clear, icy crystals, but somehow Nagumo kept going. Maybe he’d been dramatic, maybe he didn’t need Akao or Sakamoto to survive after all, because Nagumo felt dead, but his body continued moving along just fine. It was cold and numb, but it kept walking forward.In fact, Nagumo became even better at his work, improving his skills until he was almost unsurpassed. Well… Maybe he should just call himself number one in the Order because did Mr. Takamura even count if the guy was more monster than man?When his joints got too stiff to bend, Nagumo found a body to warm him for the night. He found a partner and they conducted a simple exchange of physical needs.Unfortunately, his need had never been that physical in the first place and running through bedmates of various shapes and sizes only confirmed what he’d already known. What he needed wasn’t to wet his dick. What he needed was Akao.It was all so stupid. The one person his body yearned for no longer existed in this world. Then what was he supposed to do?Eventually, Nagumo did find someone who helped a little—and that was worse than not finding anyone. Because Shishiba quickly stopped fighting him off as hard, started giving in easier. Since the first Yotsumura job, his coworker had been gradually rotting away inside, and now the fruit of his heart was so overripe it was mushy, saccharine, slowly sloughing apart. At first, he’d been so fierce, hateful. A stray cat with knife-like claws scratching at Nagumo’s face trying to throw him off, kick him out.Nagumo hated it every time he reached his breaking point, because now Shishiba barely offered more than a grumbling irritation, some vague attempts at waving him away, and folded like a house of cards after Nagumo applied the slightest pressure.And the worst part was he couldn’t stay away. The worst part was Shishiba had really stopped minding.Taking on a protégé had only sped up Shishiba’s decay into kindness. Nagumo held back the irrational urge to drive his knife through Osaragi’s stomach and string up her entrails on the telephone wires in front of Shishiba’s apartment. It wouldn’t have helped. The rot was inevitable.Nagumo distanced himself after that, tried not to crawl back into Shishiba’s bed. His coworker was occupied with his mentoring duties, busy. Nagumo’s always impressive resolve would hold out until the events which took place in Bangkok shattered it like a wrecking ball melting through concrete.In the meantime though, he ran through a good portion of the staff of the accounting division, some floaters, randoms who stumbled tipsily into his path during work parties. None of those helped as much as his desperate measure of painting the fingernails on his right hand crimson one evening and imagining it was Akao’s. Absolute bottom of the barrel resort, but it worked at least for a few hours. The night had ended with him curled up in bed, exhausted, his hand on the side of his face the way Akao used to cup it after she thought he’d fallen asleep. It was in those post-midnight hours with only their ever-draining hourglasses listening that she’d murmur his name, brush his cheek like he was someone she actually cared about.The life force in Nagumo’s chest flickered weakly for those iced-over years, but aggravatingly, it refused to go out. It was more than half a decade later when Nagumo finally put on a disguise once more and sought out Sakamoto. He dressed up, sat down behind the counter, teased his best friend’s newly adopted children, and waited. Before long, Sakamoto walked back into the store, and they fought just like old times. The scuffle ended with Sakamoto holding a blade to his throat, and Nagumo had to struggle to focus on his objective. He’d come to deliver a warning. Not to indulge.Sakamoto didn’t heed his words.Of course he didn’t. Not when Nagumo was dressed as himself.Shishiba didn’t either.It was enough to make Nagumo want to tear at his hair. They never listened to him.He resisted the urge to rip out his guts as he knelt at their feet and use his own blood to paint a crimson caution symbol on the floor so bright they had to look. To beg them to see his sincerity.Even then, it wouldn’t have helped. Not when it was Nagumo who was talking. Not when his tainted blood and body were worth less than the ground they stepped on.The pizza man Nagumo carried from the convenience store that first day became a slick paste on the floor of a cement parking structure a few neighborhoods away at some point. Nagumo wiped his dirty shoes on what remained of the assassin’s clothing leaving dark streaks on once denim jeans. Whoopsie. It seemed he’d gotten a little carried away. Oh well, it’s not like Nagumo could even apologize to his corpse if it barely existed anymore.The floater who arrived later went white and stiff when he patted them on the shoulder and thanked them in advance for cleaning up. Nagumo wondered what expression he was wearing as he strolled back out into the sunlight.Sakamoto had changed so much everything except the signature of his bloodlust was almost unfamiliar. Even so, Nagumo really shouldn’t have gone back. It was the beginning of a relapse.Sakamoto continually showing up everywhere didn’t help the matter. Instead of trusting the Order to handle things, he just kept sticking his nose into more and more dangerous situations—even landing himself in the hospital at one point.When they’d visited him there and he’d delivered the update about Uzuki, Nagumo realized his wounds from nearly a decade ago had never healed. They’d just frozen along with his body. Now, hearing Uzuki was still alive, the deep gouges had started thawing, and he was bleeding again.Even as he smiled and followed Hyo out of there, Nagumo knew red lifeblood trickled out of the hole in his chest once more. Not good. The Slur mission suddenly became more serious. If Nagumo didn’t find some closure to patch up the wound with soon, he might not survive much longer.What he needed were sutures. What he had to make do with were bandages. Bandages formed from little cuts of Sakamoto’s time. Little indulgences, little excuses to drop by the store to see him.Nagumo went through a variety of faces. He dressed as myriad different people. But not as Aoi. Never as Aoi.He couldn’t do that. Not in front of Sakamoto. He couldn’t bear to see the difference in how Sakamoto treated the two of them, the weight of the love in his eyes. The love Nagumo had always wanted to feel for himself.Nagumo was an assassin. But he was also a coward.He couldn’t face the death he bestowed upon others himself. Not in that form. Not when he’d wake up the next morning, and the morning after that, and remember everything he didn’t have anew.So, he’d dressed as Shin, Lu, customers, a bus driver, even an electric repair man once. On that instance, after he’d finished, Aoi blinked at him slightly and gave him a tip in the form of a carton of strawberry milk. It was quite good, the artificial flavour just sweet enough to remind him of the coated biscuit sticks which made up most of his meals nowadays. All in all, he found himself thinking it was too bad the electrical wiring didn’t have issues more often in that neighborhood.His little games went on for a while as the situation became more serious and the number of assassins killed by Uzuki’s schemes skyrocketed. Some days after a tiring morning of work, Nagumo would dress as a random passerby and bump into Sakamoto’s shoulder on the street as they passed each other. Once he was so worn down he actually blacked out briefly at the contact. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the ground and Sakamoto was leaning over him offering a hand like he’d done that day on JCC campus so many years ago. As a warm palm firmly pulled him up, Nagumo sighed softly.So much had changed, and at the same time, so much was as it always had been.While his temper was still easily triggered, out on the street when he didn’t know who he was talking to, Sakamoto’s eyes were as kind as ever. He almost seemed a little concerned even. Nagumo caught the wrinkled visage of his disguise in the reflection of Sakamoto’s glasses and smiled, giving his best friend a reassuring pat on the arm.“Thank you for your help, young whippersnapper. I’ll be on my way now.”Shortly after that particular interaction, events in the assassin world began to escalate beyond the point of control. Without Kanaguri and Hyo (but mostly Hyo since Kanaguri rarely did any real work), the remaining Order members were constantly busy with dangerous missions and the ridiculous about of paperwork which came after them. Nagumo did some sweet-talking to get out of most of his share, but even so, he didn’t have the time or energy to set up another little anonymous encounter with Sakamoto (whose nosing around had exacerbated into full-scale away missions and was rarely home anyways).So the next, and final, time the two of them crossed paths, it was at the museum. For once, Nagumo wasn’t wearing a disguise. Not of another person’s face. Not even of his usual light-hearted cheer.Frankly, the entire day’s events had drained him of the remaining fuel his spirit had been weakly subsisting off of, and he no longer had the energy to apply any sort of false front. His wounds were dripping blood down the front of his chest, and not all of the crimson blooming across his dress shirt was from his fresh, physical gash. Even much of the accompanying pain was old. Nagumo felt frigid and weary.Everything had gone on for long enough. He’d gone on for long enough.At least Akao was back in some form now. Sakamoto would be fine, he always was.Lying on the cold tiled floor surrounded by a halation of shattered glass, Nagumo stopped fighting the deep chill spreading out from his bones and into surrounding flesh.“Nagumo, don’t die.”Sakamoto was still as stupid as always. Like that was something Nagumo could control.He wanted to scowl, but if he only had time for one last expression, it should be a playful one. So Nagumo smiled, soft and smug and content. “Looks… like I win this time.”Sakamoto’s hand was squeezing his arm. His attention was on his face.All in all, Nagumo had no regrets. Sakamoto was looking at him. At him. It was almost a dream.Nagumo was really tired. Had been for the past ten years. His vision blurred, darkened around the edges, but he strained to keep his eyes open a few breaths more. He wanted to take in Sakamoto’s features for as long as he could. Since he and Akao wouldn’t be seeing them again.She’d be so disappointed to know Sakamoto wouldn’t be joining them in hell. Her face would scrunch up and she’d pout like a child, and he’d have to say something irritating to make her mad instead, to distract her. That at least, Nagumo could do.His entire life he’d been a genius, a top student, the strongest (Mr. Takamura didn’t count, Nagumo had decided eventually, since the man was more bloodlust incarnate than mortal). But in the end, none of that mattered. The skills his family had drilled into him, the personal flair he’d added to his fights, the careful intelligence which had formed the backbone of his combat strategies—it was all worthless.The only skills in his repertoire Nagumo had ever valued were the ones which allowed him to make Akao blush furiously and lose her train of thought. The ones which allowed him to occasionally covet slivers of Sakamoto’s warm attention and the fleeting brushes of his kind hands.